What a clever idea. Capture video from another machine using the free Virtual Network Computing (VNC) remote terminal, and transcode it into a Flash swf
file. Looks like a clever way to capture interactive sessions for bug
documentation or training. (Update: Thanks to Andrew for correcting the
link!)
Archive | 2004
RSS lets the web reach its early promise, says Dickerson
Chad Dickerson writes in InfoWorld’s CTO Connection column:
“RSS growing pains.
These days, despite near-universal acclaim for the technology, I have a
real love/hate relationship with RSS. The love part of the relationship
derives from the profound changes in my information production and
consumption habits during the past year and a half. During that time,
Iâve been blogging and producing content with RSS. Whereas my e-mail
client, MS Word, and Google used to rule my desktop, I now find myself
using Bloglines, Feedster, and Technorati throughout the day and
writing to my internal and external blogs using ecto. Although the
plumbing is quite simple, Iâm still fascinated by all the background
pinging (as new Weblog content is posted) and the real-time indexing of
fresh content. When Dave Sifry at Technorati reports that the median
time from Weblog content posting until that content is available for
search on Technorati is seven minutes, I see a paradigm shifting.
Despite ãonlyä being XML, RSS is the driving force fulfilling the Webâs
original promise: making the Web useful in an exciting, real-time way.”
[InfoWorld: Application development]
Fox Wiki White Paper Directory
On the FoxForum Wiki, I’ve started a page called “White Paper Directory” listing web pages I’ve found with useful Visual FoxPro information in the form of speaker’s notes, reprinted articles and so forth. If you know of other resources, and I know there are many, please add to the page.
What a great application for RSS this could be! If each author were to generate and maintain their white paper directory using RSS (as Rick Strahl does in this RSS feed), a central aggregator could easily keep up with what’s changing and offer the ability to search. Wouldn’t this be a killer app?
Brad Silverberg interview
Former Windows Exec Talks Microsoft.
Veteran Microsoft watchers will remember Brad Silverberg, the former
Microsoft exec who championed Internet Explorer and Windows 95.
Professional services firm The Milestone Group is featuring an
interesting Q&A with Silverberg in the latest issue of The
Milestone Quarterly. [Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley]
Steve Gillmor: RSS prepares to take over
Synch the Browser.
“When Microsoft abandoned Internet Explorer development to concentrate
on fixing the browser’s security vulnerabilities, it opened the door to
the emerging RSS revolution,” says eWEEK’s Steve Gillmor.
An interesting speculative piece on how the web might be taken over by RSS technologies.
Happy First Anniversary, Mozilla Foundation
The Mozilla Foundation celebrates its first anniversary, and what a busy year it has been!
Dan Bricklin: Software That Lasts 200 Years
Dan Bricklin writes in Dan Bricklin’s Log: “Software that lasts 200 years.
I just posted a new essay that grew out of my exposure to the state of
Massachusetts’ work on open source and open standards, as well as from
my thinking about open source and software development business models
in general.”
“It looks like the structure and culture of a
typical prepackaged software company is not attuned to the long-term
needs of society for software that is part of its infrastructure. This
essay discusses the ecosystem needed for development that better meets
those needs.”
Read “Software That Lasts 200 Years“.
Monthly Microsoft patch bonanza
Microsoft issues seven security patches, two critical.
Software updates released today by Microsoft include fixes for
previously unknown flaws in the Windows OS, including critical holes in
the Windows Task Manager and HTML help features. [Computerworld News]
HTML Help, Task Manager and IIS 4.0 under NT 4 all get patches. Hot stuff. Get patched.
An AntiVirus Ate My Computer!
I thought anti-viruses were supposed to be the good guys. Somewhere
between installing Microsoft’s latest patch and installing Norton
AntiVirus 2004, my Windows XP laptop has lost its ability to do all
things IE-related without superfluous “Scripts are usually safe. Do you
want to allow scripts to run?” dialogs and “Internal Program Error”
dialogs. Attempting
to restore XP to a restore point failed, as it always has on the
machine — wonder what magic is involved in setting it up to work
correctly. It would be no problem if it only took out IE, as I prefer
FireFox for browsing, but it has also disabled QuickBooks and the
Norton AntiVirus user interface. Integrating their products with
Microsoft’s IE engine may not have been the smartest move. The
solution, according to Symantec’s
email support , is to completely remove NAV and reinstall IE, a process
they document in 21 pages in their email and knowledgebase.
Off to try the cure. Hope it’s not worse than the disease. Wish me luck.
Developers, developers, developers, developers
Microsoft boosts partner investments. Company also reallocates one-third of its worldwide direct customer-marketing to joint-marketing with partners. [CNET News.com]
Putting its money where it’s mouth is, Microsoft is trying to lure partners who buy into its vision.